Field of Invention
The present invention relates generally to surveillance systems, and more particularly to a system for monitoring a plurality of different, spaced locations in a home at a single viewing station.
The use of video cameras, particularly to monitor the activities and comings and goings of individuals at various locations in a public building, has become widespread in recent years as security concerns have increased. To this end, video cameras are positioned at various locations in the building. The video outputs of the cameras coupled respectively to a corresponding plurality of television receivers located at a security station at which the images from these cameras can be viewed by a security officer who is thus able to view each of the monitored locations at one time.
Although less common, largely as a result of cost, the use of video cameras to monitor locations in and outside of a residence is also on the increase, as both the cost and size of television monitoring equipment have decreased while home security concerns have increased. For example, by the use of a properly located video camera connected to a wireless transmitter that sends a video signal to a receiver connected to a television monitor, the homeowner is able to see from a safe distance who is at the front door, view the pool, check on the baby in a crib, and the like.
To increase the utility of the use of video cameras to monitor different locations in the home, it is desirable to be able to view on a single receiver or monitor the images derived from a plurality of video cameras located at the selected different locations that are of primary concern to the homeowner. This arrangement, however, requires that the video transmitter associated with the video camera that is then on be turned off before the video transmitter associated with another video camera directed at the desired new monitoring location is turned on. Otherwise the television monitor or receiver would receive images from two or more different video transmitters at the same time, which would result in an unusable, garbled image. There is thus a need for an improved, reliable and yet reasonably priced multi-location home surveillance system that employs a plurality of spaced, remote video cameras each with its own video transmitter that transmits a video image to a central receiver.
It is accordingly an object of the present invention to provide a multi-camera home surveillance and monitoring system in which only one of the multiple cameras in the system is able to send an image at any given time to a central receiver.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a home surveillance system of the type described that reliably achieves viewing of any selected one of a plurality of spaced locations in and around the home at a single viewing station.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a home monitoring system of the type described in which spaced locations in and around the home may be automatically and sequentially monitored.
To these ends, the home surveillance system of the present invention includes a plurality, for example four, of video cameras and associated video transmitters or senders positioned at selected different locations in and around the home. Each of the cameras is selectively operable, i.e., turned on and off, by the operation of a remote control unit, which sends a control xe2x80x9coffxe2x80x9d signal to the previously xe2x80x9conxe2x80x9d camera just prior to sending an xe2x80x9conxe2x80x9d signal to the newly selected camera. In this manner, only one of the cameras is xe2x80x9conxe2x80x9d at any given time, thus assuring that two or more cameras do not transmit their video images at the same time.
For example, in one embodiment of the invention described herein, a control signal is sent to turn television camera 1 xe2x80x9conxe2x80x9d by an addressable control module to which the camera and its associated video transmitter are connected. Then a control signal is sent to turn another camera, say camera 2, xe2x80x9conxe2x80x9d by an addressable control module to which that camera and its associated video transmitter are connected. The addressable control module to which the camera and its associated video transmitter set to xe2x80x9c1xe2x80x9d are connected automatically turns off when the addressable control module to which the camera and its associated video transmitter set to xe2x80x9c2xe2x80x9d turns on. The camera control signals are preferably in the form of binary-coded signals received by the control modules from a xe2x80x9csmartxe2x80x9d transceiver via a common connection to the home a.c. power line in a manner similar to that described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,229,443. These coded signals would typically include the address and desired control function, i.e., turn xe2x80x9conxe2x80x9d and turn xe2x80x9coffxe2x80x9d, of the control modules.
The transceiver operates in response to rf. binary-coded signals received from a remote control unit to receive, detect and convert those signals to correspondingly binary-coded signals, which, as stated above, are transmitted to the control modules over the a.c. power line. In another aspect of the invention, the remote control unit may include a scan function in which it transmits a scan code signal to the transceiver, which, in one embodiment of the invention, in response, transmits sequential control signals to the control modules and thus to the video transmitters or senders to cause the latter to be turned on and off in a predetermined sequence, e.g., backward or forward, with, as noted above, only one of the cameras being turned xe2x80x9conxe2x80x9d at any given time.
In the scan mode, upon the receipt of a scan code signal from the remote control unit, the transceiver sends over the a.c. power line an initial control signal, which turns a previously xe2x80x9conxe2x80x9d camera, say camera 1, xe2x80x9coffxe2x80x9d, and after a predetermined period sends a second control signal, which turns camera 2 xe2x80x9conxe2x80x9d. After a further preset delay, the transceiver sends a new control signal to turn camera 2 xe2x80x9coffxe2x80x9d and a further signal to turn camera 3 xe2x80x9conxe2x80x9d. This process continues as long as desired so that the home owner can continuously, automatically monitor each viewed location in and around the home in either a forward, camera 1-2-3-4 sequence, or a backward or reverse, camera 4-3-2-1 sequence.
In another implementation of the invention, each of the plurality of addressable control modules includes a resident code, in addition to its own unique address code, that designates the module as being included in a common group of modules. In this arrangement, the control command signal that is sent by the transceiver to each of the modules includes the group code in addition to the designated module address and camera command code. In response to this coded signal, the module that is addressed and which is to be actuated is turned on and each of the other modules in the group is turned off.